Internationalism- A Year 10 (2015/16) Co Art initiative

Our very first project was one in which we had to raise awareness on a topic that we felt was important to us. We, the students of Year 10, were given the freedom to come up with a few topics that we felt were important. The ideas were then presented to the rest of the class and a voting took place. Some ideas included ‘Happiness’, ‘Depression’ and ‘Famine’ among many others. We eventually settled with a topic that was global and easy to relate to: Internationalism.

 We chose this topic because it was related to one of our school’s vision, ‘Respecting Differences”. In the present world good relationships between countries, races, religion, and people in general are necessary in order to live peacefully. Not everyone is the same, but it is our duty to make sure that everyone is treated indifferently, without prejudice.

The big day finally came, and all preparations were completed. It took a while before the teachers arrived, and the presentation began. The opening speech was presented by Adam Rais and me with a mash-up of ‘Black and White’ by Michael Jackson playing in the background. The first presentation was done by the Music group, who sang a Multi language version of ‘Come Back Home’ by 2NE1. The audience was amazed at their efforts to translate the lyrics. It was followed by the Games group, who presented and demonstrated interesting games from different cultures. The next presentation was from the Drama group, who presented a comedy drama about the importance of internationalism, as well as the negative effects of prejudice with an original plot. The following was an Art group presentation. This group showcased their artwork, which was a world map with three-dimensional, scaled-down monuments and landmarks from around the world. They gave information on each landmark and had a Q&A session with the audience. The final group to present was the Dance group. They performed to a medley of songs from different countries and cultures, such as American, Arabic, Indian and Korean. The performance showcased the similarities and differences between different dances, and they were all influenced by each other in some way. The presentation concluded with a speech by Mr.­­­­­­ Guy, who shared his thoughts on our presentation.

Overall, the presentation was a huge success and I personally look forward to working on future Community Arts projects.

                                                                                                                               Jackie (Year 10)